Manhunt 4K 1976

It's hard to be objective about a movie that literally shook the psyche of a ten-year-old, which I was in the fall of 1977. Time has erased almost all the details of the movie from my memory. I forgot (unfortunately!) the melody that struck me, I could not recall the names of the characters. But there remained in me forever an inexplicable pinching sensation of touching an unknown culture, traditions and aesthetics of a distant and mysterious country in the far east. The only episode, deeply lodged in my memory and linking me today with the Japanese picture of the mid-70s - horses running through the streets of Tokyo.

After almost 37 years, I managed to revisit 'Manhunt'.

Of course, the detective from the 1970s is largely anachronistic and naive, and in some places slips into literal primitivism. The few special effects raise a smile and call for indulgence. However, I caught myself that I still liked this movie! And most surprisingly, I felt almost the same emotions that possessed me back in 1977! The magic of the movie has not disappeared. The charm of 'Manhunt' is as clear and exciting as the moon over the ocean. And the point here is not in the moral and ethical problems that the picture touches upon, and not in the acute social problems (for which, by the way, this film was selected for distribution in the USSR), and not in the original detective story, and not in the elaboration of psychological portraits of the heroes - understanding all this was inaccessible for a ten-year-old boy and deeply indifferent for a forty-seven-year-old man. Here it is different. The movie conquers by some mysterious and incomprehensible fusion of toughness and hardness of the heroes' actions with their sensitivity, tenderness and love; sense of duty and thirst for justice; external exoticism of characters (incredibly textured and charming Ken Takakura as Marioka) and 'neon metropolis' of Tokyo; incredible adventures and everyday earthiness....

'Manhunt' can be considered a forerunner of such a famous action movie as 'The Fugitive' (with Harrison Ford). All the main components of the American mega-hit are taken (and often directly borrowed) from the half-forgotten Japanese original. In essence, 'Manhunt' was and remains a benchmark of a subspecies of action movies that can be labeled as 'run to escape'. In a way, a landmark movie!

It is foolish to recommend this movie to young people of the 'popcorn movie' era. Viewers brought up on drive, action and 3D graphics will understandably get bored and drowsy. And in general, this is a case where the call to see the movie 'by all means' and 'must-see' will be completely unnecessary and inappropriate.

I took a trip back to my childhood (for which I am extremely grateful to director Junji Sato and composer Hachiro Aoyama) and I'm not calling anyone to follow me....